Grade 7: The Giver
Analyzing theme
Topic
Theme
Text Evidence That Supports This Theme
Perfection
Perfection is not a goal that
is worth striving for.
In order to create a perfect society, Jonas’ community
sacrifices:
● True families (families are created so that no one
is alone; elderly are placed in houses that care
for the old so that they are cared for, but this
means no one has grandparents or connections
to their own parents past a certain age)
● Individual choices (choosing your career, who
you love, what/how you feel, what you keep
private vs. what you tell to others, etc.)
● The value of human life (people are released - or
killed - as a way to control the population,
preserve sameness, prevent sickness/suffering,
or as punishment)
● Love (Jonas’ parents respond to him with a
lecture about precision of language when he asks
if they love him. They don’t know what love is
because the community removed the true
emotions that people can feel when they moved
to Sameness).
Pain/ Joy
There can be no pleasure
without pain and no pain
without pleasure.
You cannot value the pleasure an experience can bring
you if you do not also understand pain. Evidence from
the text that shows this:
● Jonas reflections that his family members do not
truly know what anger or sadness is
● Jonas’ question to his parents about whether
they love him demonstrates that they do not
understand the depths of love; they also live
lives that are free from pain as a trade-off
● Death in Jonas’ community is not tragic because
life is not precious or unique. Any of the text
evidence related to release could support this
theme.
Memory
We learn from our past
mistakes. Without the
memories of those mistakes,
we cannot make decisions
about our future.
● The elders of Jonas’ community rely on The Giver
to advise them because they have no memory of
the past to ground decisions for the future. For
example, they wanted to increase the number of
children each birth mother would have, but The
